“I Won’t Be Long”- Beck

The notoriously genre-restless Beck has announced plans for an acoustic album to be released later this year, but the two tracks he’s dropped since then have pointed to something else entirely. There’s been talk of a release alongside the acoustic record as a “proper follow-up to Modern Guilt,” but neither album has been named or given a release date. “Defriended” which dropped early last-month was programmed from the same code as 2006′s The Information and could’ve been a dreamy interlude on that LP. Meanwhile “I Won’t Be Long” is guided by a chugging bassline and unobtrusive guitar playing, with a skittering drum machine serving as the act-break for the hypnotism routine. Beck’s lyrics convey a similar state of dreariness, telling time from “an hourglass full of ice,” and pinpointing a place where “no one has a clue where we are.” By the end they “silently go,” to an undisclosed location and the song heads into the horizon. Wherever they’re going, it won’t be a cavalcade of footsteps and stamps, but a quiet trek into the unknown.

Listen to the new track here and check back on the site for more news on the album releases when it develops.